Surviving High School (11 page)

“At least now you’ll have to change out of that stupid dress,” whispered Dominique, crouching down and leaning over the pool but not offering Emily any help. “Don’t think this means Ben is yours. Just because the two of you took a little swim—”

As Emily climbed farther out of the pool, Dominique tried to stand up, but her foot landed on Emily’s soaked skirt and the wet taffeta slipped out from under her. She tried to steady herself, but it was no use. She stumbled forward over the ledge and into the pool.

Emily turned around to see a furious Dominique treading water. Her face was so angry and contorted that Emily felt an urge to call an exorcist. At the far end of the pool, Hannah, Amanda, and some of the other popular girls, who had witnessed the whole exchange, were laughing so hard they were crying.

“So that’s how it’s going to be,” said Dominique.

“No, wait,” said Emily. “I didn’t mean—”

“Save it,” said Dominique. “There’s no stopping me now. I’m coming at you with everything I’ve got. Watch your back from here on out, Kessler. There’s a target on it.”

An hour later, Emily sat in the passenger seat of Samantha’s truck—definitely not her first choice for a ride home, but Kimi and Phil had disappeared without warning, leaving Emily stranded, and Samantha had begrudgingly offered her a lift.

Normally, Emily’s eyes would have bulged at the sight of the speedometer’s needle pointing well past eighty, and her pulse would have quickened as the scenery rushed by, but tonight her only thoughts were of Ben Kale. She looked down to see the T-shirt and sweatpants he’d lent her, and a warm feeling radiated from her chest as she remembered jumping after him into the pool.

“What are you smiling about?” asked Samantha. “Your little boyfriend back at the party?”

“Ben’s not my boyfriend,” said Emily.

“Too bad,” said Samantha. “You’re kind of cute together.”

“Really? You think so?”

Samantha rolled her eyes and muttered something that sounded like
freshmen
.

“Whatever,” said Emily. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like he’ll actually ever be my boyfriend. It was fun hanging out, but I’m way too busy for, you know, date nights and going out to dinner and a movie, and dances and stuff.”

“Too busy?” asked Samantha.

“My life—” started Emily. “It’s scheduled down to the minute. I wake up, eat, head to school, swim for three hours, dinner, homework, stretching, maybe an hour to talk to people online, and then I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep the minute my head touches the pillow.”

“It sounds like you’ve got a pretty packed schedule,” said Samantha.

“Definitely.”

“But on the other hand…” Samantha trailed off.

“What?”

“Well, you
did
make it out to the party tonight.”

“This was a onetime thing.”

“Right,” said Samantha. “Of course.”

Emily crossed her arms and glanced over at Samantha, trying to get a read on her. With her freshly shaved head and her motorcycle jacket, Samantha looked more like a heroine out of a postapocalyptic zombie movie than a high school girl. It was hard to believe they were talking about something as mundane as boys.

“Busy, busy girl,” Samantha added.

“You’re making fun of me,” said Emily.

“You’re pretty observant.”

As they neared Emily’s street, she told Samantha to stop and let her out a block from home.

“Daddy doesn’t know you left?” asked Samantha.

“Does yours?”

Samantha shrugged and smiled. She pulled over to the street corner and killed the engine.

“Probably not,” she admitted.

Emily opened the door and stepped out of the truck.

“Anyway,” she said, “thanks for the ride.”

She closed the door and had taken a few steps toward home when she heard Samantha’s voice calling after her.

“Hey, Kessler! If your sister had time for a boyfriend, so do you.”

Emily turned to respond, but by the time the words had sunk in, Samantha’s engine had already roared to life. In all
her years around a pool, Emily had only belly flopped off a diving board once or twice. Now, she had that same feeling, as if all the air had been pushed out of her.

“Your sister had time for a boyfriend.”

Emily watched in silence as the older girl’s taillights disappeared into the distance.

“Your sister had… a boyfriend.”

It was impossible, right, to live in the same house as someone for more than a dozen years without really knowing her? And yet—Emily’s parents knew nothing about Ben. Emily had never mentioned him, and she’d sneaked out to his party without them knowing. Was it possible that Emily herself had been just as clueless about Sara’s love life?

Emily turned and started walking home, the words echoing in her mind. What if what Samantha had said was true? What did it mean if Sara—the Machine—turned out to have been human?

Halfway through her 10K run the next morning, Emily was starting to regret going to Ben’s party. What was the point in trying to get together with a cute guy if she collapsed and died of a heart attack by the side of the road before she even got a kiss?

“You’re almost a minute over your usual time at the 5K mark!” her father shouted from the driver’s seat of his car. On Saturdays, he liked to drive at her side as she ran her circuit through sleepy suburban neighborhoods. “I sure hope you’re planning to pick it up in the back half of the run.”

“When’s the last time you even ran a mile?” Emily said under her breath.

“What’s that?” her dad barked. “I couldn’t quite hear you.
Sounds like you’re a little winded!” He reached over to his CD player and switched it on. “Maybe this will fire you up.”

“Dad, no,” Emily said, her lungs burning as she tried to speed up her pace. “Please don’t. It’s
way
too early in the morning for this.”

“Too late!” her dad said, smiling gleefully.

A few seconds later, the national anthem started playing.

“Please stop,” Emily said, barely able to talk and breathe at the same time.

“You’ve got to visualize!” her dad shouted. “You’re on top of the Olympic podium, the flag unfurled behind you… and then ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ starts blasting from the stadium’s speakers!”

“This isn’t… helping,” said Emily. Her legs felt like jelly as each step of the run sent a shock wave through her aching muscles.

“Out in the crowd are the girls you beat. The Brazilians, the Australians. The Canadians! Yeah, that’s right. We’re not listening to ‘O Canada,’ Em. Those are the Stars and Stripes hanging at your back. That’s
our
anthem playing!”

She tried to ignore the blaring music and the pain and sleepiness. That’s what Sara would do: Fight through it all and find a way to speed up and beat her usual time. Sara would find a way to win.

And then Emily remembered:
“Your sister had… a boyfriend.”

The sentence sat in Emily’s gut like a stone she’d swallowed and couldn’t digest. She needed to find out more
about this supposed boyfriend, preferably soon. Suddenly, every conversation she’d had with the upperclassmen had taken on a new shade of meaning. Phil had mentioned knowing Sara, and Samantha claimed to know about some kind of secret boyfriend—but it was Cameron Clark who
kept
talking about Sara. When Emily had told him that Sara had never mentioned his name, he’d seemed so—disappointed.

“Dad,” she said, “did you ever see any guys hanging out with Sara?”

“What?” he asked. “I can’t hear you!”

“Maybe turn the music down a little?”

He shook his head. “In the middle of the national anthem?” He turned the volume up. Maybe it had been pointless to ask, anyway. Emily had a feeling he’d chosen not to hear on purpose.

“… And the rockets’ red glare,” her father sang along with the car stereo, “the bombs bursting in air!”

She couldn’t stand it anymore. Emily quickened her pace, almost sprinting as she tried to get as far away from him as possible.

“Yeah!” her dad exclaimed as he accelerated to catch up. “That’s the spirit!”

That night, Kimi came by for their monthly sleepover. She unpacked her never-to-be-mentioned-to-anyone-on-pain-of-death Hello Kitty sleeping bag as Emily sorted through her friend requests on Facebook, trying to figure out which
people she actually knew. Kimi kicked off her shoes and flopped facedown on Emily’s bed.

“Uh, so, sorry about last night,” said Kimi, avoiding eye contact.

“No problem. I got a ride home from Samantha,” said Emily as her cursor hovered over Zach Reynolds’s friend request. They
had
played Never Have I Ever together. Technically, that qualified as a kind of friendship, right? She hit Accept.

“Kimi, I know this might sound weird, but have you ever heard any rumors? Like, about my sister?”

Kimi sat up and looked over at her.

“About Sara? No. I mean, I doubt anyone would say anything to me. They know you and I are friends. Honestly, though, I don’t think there’s much to say.”

“Yeah,” said Emily. “You’re probably right. Sorry I brought it up.”

It doesn’t matter
, she thought.
I’m pretty sure I know who I need to talk to anyway
.

She imagined what it would feel like to confront Cameron Clark, to ask him if he and Sara had secretly dated. A shiver went through her as she turned back to the computer.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she added after a few seconds. “Something fun.”

Kimi flipped onto her back and let her head roll over the edge of the bed. Her hair hung down like thin black icicles as she arched her back like a contented cat and looked expectantly at Emily.

“Okay,” she said. “Ask me about my night.”

“Huh? What about it?”

“Emily! Try to keep up with me on this,” she said. “I mean, I disappear from a party with one of the hottest, most popular guys in school, who also happens to be totally nice and who
also
has an awesome car, and you’re not even
curious
?”

“Okay, so, what happened?” asked Emily, swiveling her chair to look at Kimi.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kimi said. “I’m not one to kiss and tell.”

Emily shrugged and turned her attention back to the computer.

“What are you doing?!” asked Kimi. “Don’t you want to know about me and Phil?”

Emily turned back to her. “But you just said—”

“I can’t just
tell
you what happened. It would be—unladylike. But maybe if you begged me a little, and promised never to tell anyone, and offered to reveal all your darkest secrets, and threatened to torture the information out of me—”

“Fine,” said Emily. “Tell me what happened or I’ll—I’ll tell everyone at school that you have lice. And a fake leg. And that you have an entire wall of Justin Bieber posters in your room.”

Kimi put a hand over her mouth in mock horror.

“You wouldn’t,” she said.

“Oh, I would.”

“Well, then, I guess I’ll have to confess,” said Kimi. “But I
want it noted that anything I tell you is entirely off the record, and that I shared it with you under duress.”

“Noted.”

“So
maybe
Phil drove me to the lake, and
maybe
he and I kind of sort of made out in his car. For four hours.”

“What?!”

“Yes!”

“For
four
hours?” asked Emily.

Kimi nodded, then grabbed Emily’s pillow and fell back on the bed, screaming gleefully into it.

“
Four
hours,” said Emily.

Kimi removed the pillow just long enough to say, “I know! I know!”

“Was it—good?”

“Well, yeah,” said Kimi. “Except now my lips are
really
chapped. But I haven’t even told you the best part yet!”

“What?”

“He totally asked me to homecoming!”

“What?!”

“So maybe we could make it a double date?” asked Kimi. “Like—with me and Phil. And you and Ben.”

Kimi looked hopefully at Emily, who was sitting, mouth open, trying to process this request. A week ago, the whole scenario would have seemed impossible—the two of them heading to homecoming with a couple of the most popular guys at school. Now it all seemed suddenly real, tangible even, as if the Ben that Emily had dreamed about holding at night could reach out and wrap his arms around her.

“Kimi—you know I can’t.”

“I do?” Kimi asked. She sat on the edge of the bed, coyly crossing her legs, and put her elbow on her knee. Then she leaned forward, put her chin on her fist, and looked at Emily with a puzzled expression on her face. “Explain.”

“Well, for one, there’s my dad. Never in a million years would he let me go to a dance. And then there’s Ben Kale. He hasn’t exactly asked me.”

“Em, you’re killing me.”

Kimi flopped back down on the bed and covered her face with her hands.

“There’s no way I can go,” said Emily.

Kimi started to make hacking noises as if she were gasping her last breaths.

“I’m—dying here. Don’t—do this—to me!” She rolled to one side and looked up pleadingly. “You do
want
to go, right?”

For a moment, Emily closed her eyes and pictured Ben in a suit, roses cleverly hidden behind his back, ringing her doorbell to pick her up for the dance. She imagined him offering her an arm, walking her out to his car, and opening the door for her. She imagined dancing to the last song of the night with him as he looked down into her eyes, and then letting him walk her up to her doorstep and leaning in and—

Okay, yeah. She
did
want to go.

“Fine! If I happen to see Ben, and the subject of homecoming
happens
to come up, then I’ll see what I can do.”

Kimi sprang to her feet and pulled Emily from her chair. She took Emily’s hands and started mock slow-dancing
with her, twirling her around and humming an old R&B song.

“This is going to be amazing,” said Kimi.

“He hasn’t even asked me y—”

Kimi shushed her.

“Going. To. Be. Amazing.”

On Sunday, Emily went to bed at her usual time. As she closed her eyes, she wondered if she’d see Ben the next day. It hadn’t been until she got home from his party that she’d realized she hadn’t given him her number or even an e-mail address.